


Fusion Was the Broken Heart

by ohmyohpioneer



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst, F/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 13:52:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2734940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyohpioneer/pseuds/ohmyohpioneer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, here, at the End of the World, he feels less lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fusion Was the Broken Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I completely blame this particular AU on Josh Ritter's "The Temptation of Adam," my love of post-apocalyptic literature, and my Russian History degree.

“Princess?” 

She nods, shoves her hands in her pockets and looks around the field - quiet, windswept greenery that she takes in greedily (forcefully off-hand). “Pirate?”

“Aye,” he grips the pack at his shoulder and wonders at her empty hands.

The code names are formality and he’s not sure why they’re concerned with them at this point other than he thinks that maybe her whole body is floundering for routine, too.

“You ready?” She asks, but doesn’t look at him (doesn’t care about his answer).

“As one could ever be.”

And they’re opening the hatch, descending below the ground. He watches as she scrambles down quickly and out of sight, her eyes determinedly not looking up. When he gazes up at the sun, he tries to make out faint stars and the moon in the midday sky. He memorizes the way the universe bows slightly, and the way that it smells like brightness.

“Hey!” Her gruff call echoes below him. “You coming?” 

A burning ring of light is the last he sees of the world before he closes the hatch and climbs down the ladder. “Yeah.” But she’s can’t hear him, and she’s already adept at ignoring him, so he remembers the world for them both.

\---

It’s sterile and cold despite the fluorescent lights. Clinical and awful.

Home.

“So,” he clears his throat which is suddenly tight, “You want top bunk or bottom?”

\---

He’s joking, of course. There are no bunk beds, just two, single, military issue cots tucked into a small room off of a living area. White walls, navy canvas sheets, metal frames; for a time of such technological advances, it’s startlingly primitive. 

The few belongings he’s tucked into his pack - the few belongings he was permitted to bring - tumble across the top of his bed. There’s a scrap of tattered sailcloth, a dinged brass compass, a dogeared edition of Conrad’s  _The Shadowline_. He unwraps his brother’s medals (Distinguished Service, Good Conduct, Navy Cross, Purple Heart) from his favorite leather jacket, and places them on a shelf at the head of his bed.

She hasn’t moved.

She’s standing there with her hands on her hips, assessing the contents of the bedside table. (Nothing but a copy of the Bible, a blank notebook, and pen. Like a hotel, but somehow more tragic.)

“You didn’t bring anything?” He asks over his shoulder, because he knows she doesn’t want him to look at her.

“Don’t have anything worth bringing,” is her response.

The entire world is going to hell and it’s the saddest thing he’s ever heard.

\--- 

“So where you from, lass?”

They’re sitting across from each other at the kitchen table - which is bigger than necessary for two people. (Generosity or wishful thinking, he’s not sure.)

She digs into her ration of beans and swallows a spoonful with a guarded expression. “Does it matter?”

It’s been like this for the past few days, and this is the first time he’s actually gotten her to agree to even eating at the same time as him.

“Well,” he draws, picks at something vaguely grey, “it’s going to get awfully lonely down here if that’s how you insist on doing this.”

“18th Ward,” she finally admits. Her hair is down for the first time, and it’s lovely, he thinks, the way it gilds her shoulders. It makes her angles less harsh, he decides. “You?”

“Was from 35th Ward, but when the draft came, was stationed with the Navy at Coast 4.” This language is the only thing they have in common so far - his accent sets him apart from her, places him distinctly in his ward like the outcast he is.

“Mmm,” she hums in idle understanding. If her opinion is changed now, he can’t tell from the firm set of her mouth. 

Trust isn’t an allowance easily afforded in these times, and he knows that she is hesitant to reveal her thoughts on their situation, doesn’t know where his allegiances lie (doesn’t know who is listening to their conversation).

But the way she takes her lower lip between her teeth and runs her fingertips down her glass of purified water makes his entire being settle and sigh with a comfort he can’t remember ever experiencing.

He’s finished his last bite of “dinner,” but the low emptiness in his stomach has barely been touched, and he rises to grab another vacuum-sealed pack of food.

“What are you doing?” the softness of her eyes a moment ago is all armor, when she folds her arms across her chest.

He lifts the foil package and shrugs, “Going back for seconds. I do love a good,” he glances at the writing printed across the front in plain letters, “Meal Type 23K. Just like Mum used to make.”

“No. No seconds. It’s called a ration for a reason.” And he’ll be damned if the look of complete reproach on her face doesn’t make him smile deeply.

Reaching around her head, he returns the food to it’s place in the pantry. “Right, love,” he leans in, “wouldn’t want to starve during the End of Days.”

\---

At night, though, when the black is staring into him and he can pretend that the ceiling stretches for miles not feet, he can hear her jagged breaths. But he lets her cry in peace, waits for her inhales to lose the hitch at the end, and tries to remember the reasons he’s not allowed to hold her. 

\---

Every morning starts with an inspection of the launch area.

They don’t speak, but sit side by side, watching the phone, and when it rings, Emma is always the one to answer. 

She nods, says yes three times, and hangs up. Shakes her head, and they both deflate with relief. It’s the closest they’ve come to comradery, but it feels somehow more, this mutual gratitude that is so deep it’s infused in their bones.

He’s not sure how much longer their hearts can withstand this pressure and release, and each morning their hands inch closer to one another. One day, he thinks, they’ll collapse into each other and never get up. 

\--- 

There’s a metal bookcase in the living area neatly lined with government approved books that he’s taken to perusing in the down hours between eating and exercising and sleeping. (Hell, it turns out,  _is_ actually hundreds of feet below the earth.)

_Moby Dick_  isn’t his favorite tale by any stretch, but it’s there and it hasn’t been censored and it’s the closest he can get to the sea, so he folds the cover over and digs in half-heartedly.

She’s startled when she enters the room to find him, sitting reclined in the chair in the corner. “Do you mind if I...?” Awkwardly, she gestures to the Light Therapy Lamp set up in the opposite corner.

“No,” he takes in the fatigued lines of her face, “Go right ahead.”

She sits in front of the lamp, switching it on, steadfastly looking at her fingernails. 

Silence eats at them for a minute, and he rereads the same passage three, four times, each attempt as unsuccessful as the last. 

“So,” she tries, the first time she’s initiated conversation, and she nods at the novel clutched in his hand. “Remnant of your Navy days?” 

He looks down at the great white whale, then meets her eyes, scratches just behind his ear, “Actually, I was a fisherman before I was drafted.” 

“Oh,” her gaze doesn’t break from his, but apologizes in a way that humankind has learned to do recently. Because they both know what draft means, know the stark line dividing enlistees and draftees. It’s mourning, he supposes, a shared grief for life interrupted.

“Yeah,” he doesn’t want to think about that life, or the one that followed, because neither are his anymore. “What about you?”

“Wasn’t a fisherman,” she smirks. 

His heart picks up pace (an entirely human reaction that is alien to him of late).

“I was a bail bonds person,” she picks at her thumb then, and he has seen this enough times before (in so many people) to know that in that pause is the crumbling of an entire world. “Then I was made a recovery agent for Secret Intelligence.”

The stillness that overtakes the room then is the worst yet. They’re both here because they’ve been cursed, and it’s obvious now. Damned. Damned to Hell.

\---

After dinner they take to sitting side by side on the sofa, eating their daily allotted portion of chocolate.

The treat collects at the corners of her mouth. It is the most simple thing he has right now, her sweet-stained smile, so he tells her about his boat, his crew, and he waits for her lips to tilt upward.

And sometimes, in the haze of the antiseptic lights, they drift to sleep head to shoulder. 

\--- 

There are some nights that are kinder than others. When you can’t see the rise of the sun or the fall of dusk, days begin to devour one another and sleep becomes a crucial event to halt the impending march of madness.

Tonight is an acute throb. Memories shoving at the edges of his mind, and inertia beginning to truly sink in.

He doesn’t miss the uneven breaths coming from the other cot. An unkind night for her, too.

“Swan?”

Stillness. Utter stillness.

His words have never breached the dark before, but he’s so  _tired_  of listening to her pain and brushing it aside.

“What?” She finally whispers wet syllables.

He turns on his side, lifts his blanket, “Come on then, Swan.” He pats the thin mat that qualifies as a mattress by government standards. 

“Killian.” She’s stern even through her tears, and he bloody  _aches_  at how much he  _admires_  her.

“Emma,  _please_.” Because maybe he needs this as much as she does.

Metal creaks against metal, and her feet are light on the floor, and she stretches out next to him on her back. So little space on the cot, but they both breathe a bit easier.

“Do you see that, Swan?” He points upward, into the black.

She sighs a raspy sigh, “See what?”

She sits up to hit the lamp at his bedside table, but he reaches for her, pulls her back so that his arm is curled around her shoulder. She is warm, her hair is soft, and the pain behind his eyes ebbs.

“No, can’t turn on the lights or you won’t be able to see.”

“There’s nothing to see.” 

“No?” He takes her hand in his, traces sloping movements in the air above their heads. “That right there is  _Cygnus_ , the swan - I imagine you’d find that fascinating. And there,” he moves her finger slightly, “is Andromeda - lass was unlucky enough to be chained to a rock at the mercy of a sea monster - so think, Swan, things  _could_ be worse.” 

There’s no response from her, but hot tears soak the fabric at his shoulder. “Emma?”

“I don’t,” she swallows, “Sometimes I don’t know if I remember what the stars look like.”

The fact that his heart is still able to shatter after  _everything_  (his brother, Milah, war) is a revelation, and he loves her for it.

“Well then,” he gathers her closer, “it’s a good thing you’re stuck down here with me.”

\--- 

The way she cleans the command center so carefully, answers the phone with a practiced and easy movement, is all shockingly like some version of  _home_.

Their routine is established. She and he in tandem hundreds of miles below the surface, disconnected from the world, isolated, and he’s never had this before: a person to rest his soul upon.

Neatly lined words spill from his mouth as he reads aloud from  _The Count of Monte Cristo_ (another routine), but his thoughts are on the shape she makes with her hair pulled high on her head, leaned over a monitor, brow furrowed in concentration.

Her actions stop suddenly, and he looks up from the page. “Something amiss, Swan?”

“I just,” she tilts her head like a thought has only now occurred to her, “It’s good to have company down here.”

The heat that dissipates across his cheeks tells him that he’s likely flush with an emotion that falls haphazardly between embarrassment and pleasure. “Too right, lass.”

Somehow, here, at the End of the World, he feels less lonely.

\--- 

The phone hasn’t sounded in two weeks and they pretend it doesn’t mean anything. (Pretend the world is whole and well. That maybe they’ve been forgotten.)

\---

They play cards after dinner now; a cacophonous two-person affair that consists of betting that evening’s chocolate rations in an all-or-nothing poker match.

She cackles maniacally, drunk on what must be a winning hand (or a fantastic bluff), and he wants to take her face between his hands, to kiss her stormy laugh from her mouth so much that he buzzes and pulls at the seams.

She wins, as she usually does, and he makes a show of grieving over his lost confections, and she snorts and he doesn’t even miss  _daylight_  anymore.

The word  _home_ is echoing in his chest when she hits him square in the forehead with a stray piece of chocolate. 

“Oy!”

And she laughs and laughs and laughs.

\--- 

It’s a Bad Night, and they’re curled around one another in his cot, whispering deliriously into the hourless void.

Her fingers tap out some sort of code on his chest, as she speaks low, “What did you do?”

He sighs - they’ve shared so much but not this. “How’s that, love?” 

She turns, and returns his noise. “We both know that we’re down here as punishment.”

Their shared curse.

“I fell in love with the Commander’s wife,” he tells her plainly. Milah is gone, whatever they had was not this, and he wonders how many others buried their fears in someone else when the world unraveled.

She moves to trace over his arm where she knows a name is etched, and he touches the crown of her head with his lips as he returns her question. “And you, Swan? What’s your sin?”

“When I was drafted to become a recovery agent, at first it was just like my bail bonds work - take in bail dodgers, real scum, you know?” Her tongue sweeps out and his eyes can just make out the nervous tick. “But then they wanted me to bring in defectors, these people who - and I just - you know how they treat defectors.”

He does (he wishes he didn’t).

For a moment he thinks that’s it - it’s enough of a crime to refuse duty, but then she continues - quieter and more withdrawn. “There was this guy - this man. David. And, and he was just a good person, you know? Worked in a small town outside of Boston that ended up in the 18th Ward when they cleared out city center. And he had a  _wife,_ and they were going to have a  _baby_. And I just. I couldn’t, you know? They didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t  _right._ ”

Now he kisses her; threads his fingers through her tangled hair, brushes his thumbs roughly across the apples of her cheeks and  _kisses her._

“No, Swan,” kisses to the corner of her mouth, the swell of her chin, her forehead. “None of this is right.”

And she lets him.

\---

“Quiet, love,” he presses against her ear when they are undressed and moving beneath the scratchy canvas. This is just for him; this is just for her. “This is  _not_  theirs.” 

She nods frantically and mouths a silent groan over his shoulder while his lips speak endless, voiceless syllables at the crook of her neck. 

She is his world, and it strange to be home, to  _find_  home, when there’s nothing left - when the apocalypse is  _here._

He’s never even seriously considered pressing That Button (the one just a few floors down), could never doom humanity like that, but there is a moment when her forearms wrap around his damp shoulders and she  _keens_ , and he thinks (for one, single, selfish second), about making this the last moment he remembers. 

\---

She wakes him with a chain of kisses across his sternum, and climbs out of his cot in the dark before he can stop her.

They eat breakfast (Swan splits a second ration with him and smirks at his raised brow), they complete their fitness regimen, they dress, and they clean the Launch Room.

But the call doesn’t come.

“What does it mean?” Her voice is so small, and she is gripping his hand tightly.

“Don’t know, love.” And he doesn’t.

\---

It is another week later when they decide (breathing heavily and entwined in her cot) that it’s time they go to the surface.

“What if there’s nothing left?”

Her question should terrify him, but his brother’s medals are here, and her back is warm against his chest, and he’s done with it all because this is all he has ever wanted.

“You’ll be stuck with me, I’m afraid.”

He feels her lips meet the pads of his fingers, “I love you.”

\---

The sun is nothing and everything like he remembers it when they push open the hatch the next day. 

“Sky,” is all she says at the expanse of blue.

“Aye.” He holds out his hand to her and she takes it immediately. “You ready, love?”

Her grin is even more devastating under the sun and sky and clouds, “As I’ll ever be.”


End file.
